Nanoindentation (see References 1 and 2) is a method to quantitatively measure a sample's mechanical properties, such as elastic modulus and hardness, for example, using a small force and a high resolution displacement sensor. Typically, a force employed in nanoindentation is less than 10 mN, with a typical displacement range being smaller than 10 μm, and with a noise level typically being better than 1 nm rms. In nanoindentation, a nanoindenter capable of determining the loading force and displacement is used. The force and displacement data are used to determine a sample's mechanical properties (see Reference 3). For this sample property estimation, a nanoindenter has to be integrated with a characterized tip which has known geometry and known mechanical properties.
One of the emerging nanoindentation applications is quantitative transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in-situ mechanical testing (see References 4, 5, 6, and 7). This testing method enables monitoring of the deformation of a sample in real time while measuring the quantitative mechanical data. Due to the limited available space in a TEM holder, however, there is a demand for a miniature transducer.
One of the key components in nanoindentation instrumentation is a transducer which converts an electrical input into a mechanical force and a mechanical displacement into an electrical signal. A well designed nanoindenter transducer can improve many aspects of the nanoindenter performance such as increasing the range of forces, including increasing the maximum force, improving force resolution and system bandwidth, and reducing system noise. The present disclosure describes embodiments of a micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) transducer for nanoindentation applications. According to embodiments described herein, the MEMS transducer employs a micromachined comb drive for actuation and sensing. Such a comb drive is advantageous because it provides a larger overlapping area of electrodes of actuation and sensing capacitors within a limited small space relative to conventional transducers, which increases an available maximum indentation force and improves the sensitivity of displacement sensing.
Limitations of Conventional Technology with Respect to Actuation
MEMS transducers have been used for nanomechanical test applications such as fracture testing (see references 8 and 9), tensile testing (see References 10, 11, 12 and 13), and indentation (see Reference 5 and 15). However, among known MEMS based nanomechanical testers only one is known to have been used for nanoindentation. This known nanoindenter uses only two plates for capacitive displacement sensing and the indentation force on the sample is applied using piezo actuation and spring reaction. The penetration depth is estimated by subtracting the actuation distance from the indenter displacement.
However, the estimated penetration depth from this operation is susceptible to error from false piezo distance estimation which commonly happens due to undesirable piezo characteristics, such as creep, hysteresis in loading and unloading, and the nonlinearity of the piezo displacement, for example. Since nanoindentation uses a small penetration depth, a small error in piezo displacement estimation can cause a relatively large error in sample property estimation.
For this reason, an integrated actuator which enables direct penetration depth measurement by making the sensed displacement the same as the penetration depth is highly desirable for accurate nanoindentation experimentation.
Limitations of Conventional Technology with Respect to Sensing
Some conventional MEMS based nanomechanical testers utilize capacitance change for displacement sensing (see References 5, 6, 10, 11, 17, and 18). However, most conventional MEMS-based mechanical testers employ a sensing capacitor having only one pair of plates or electrodes for displacement measurement. Displacement measurement using a sensing capacitor having only a single pair of electrodes is not desirable for nanomechanical testing because such a measurement scheme is subject to errors in the displacement sensing due to environmental changes. Such a displacement sensing scheme also has a relatively large nonlinearity which increases as a gap between the pair of electrodes decreases.
Another way to utilize the capacitive sensing for displacement measurement is to employ differential capacitive sensing. One differential capacitive sensor utilizes three electrodes. One of the electrodes is a moveable center electrode. The other two counter electrodes are fixed and placed in opposite directions from the movable center electrode. A displacement sensing scheme employing a differential capacitive sensor has less undesirable effects from environmental change and parasitic capacitance. However, the capacitance change caused by an undesirable source affects each of the two capacitors equally so that the undesirable capacitance change is cancelled out by the differentiation.
One MEMS based nanomechanical tester (see Reference 10) employs differential capacitance sensing using a surface micromachined comb drive sensor. In general, as compared to bulk micromachined comb drives, the electrodes of the sensing capacitors of surface micromachined comb drives have less overlapping area due to a limited plate height, which lowers the displacement sensitivity of the transducer.
By arranging the comb drives in orthogonal directions, a comb drive sensor can have multidimensional sensing capabilities. One example of a comb drive sensor integrated with a MEMS mechanical tester (see References 11, 17, and 18) realizes 2-axis force sensing capabilities with orthogonal direction comb arrays. For this multi-axis displacement sensing, each comb drive is used independently for one axis displacement sensing.
However, such a multi-axis displacement sensing scheme requires additional comb drives which requires a larger area to implement The larger area restricts the applications in which the comb drive transducer can be used, such as in-situ TEM applications which have very small size requirements.
Limitations of Conventional Technology with Respect to Spring Design
In order for nanomechanical testers to provide accurate mechanical testing results, movement of the movable electrode or probe should be restricted to the testing direction. For nanoindentation, the motion should be perpendicular to the sample surface and, although the indenter experiences a reaction from the sample stiffness, should be maintained during the indentation experiment. To maintain the mechanical testing direction, the transducer springs should be designed to have a soft or flexible characteristic to movement in the testing direction and a stiff or non-flexible characteristic to movement in other directions.
By restricting movement of the electrode or probe to the testing direction, measurement error caused by force components which are irrelevant to the testing can be minimized. Among conventional mechanical testers, one tribometer (see Reference 11) has springs specially designed for its testing purpose. The springs of this tribometer are designed to have soft lateral or rotational stiffness and large indentation direction stiffness for small friction measurement. However, such stiffness characteristics are opposite to characteristics which are desirable for nanoindentation. As described above, a transducer for nanoindentation application should have soft indentation direction stiffness and large lateral stiffness in order to penetrate the sample perpendicular to its surface plane.
In addition to the stiffness related quasi-static characteristics, the spring design has an effect on the dynamic mechanical analysis. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) measures the frequency characteristics of a sample, such as storage and loss moduli, for example, by measuring and then converting the amplitude and phase response into the mechanical properties of the sample. Dynamic mechanical testing has the highest sensitivity to a sample's reactive force when operated at its resonance frequency.
In order to obtain valid results from dynamic analysis, the dynamic mode shape at the resonance frequency should have a motion in the testing direction. To prevent coupling with other dynamic modes at the resonance frequency, the second natural frequency should be separated from the resonance frequency. This natural frequency separation decouples the first and the second modes in dynamic operation and improves dynamic mechanical analysis test results.
Dynamic mechanical analysis is based on a single-degree-of-freedom assumption and, to hold such an assumption, complete separation of the second mode from the first mode is required. When the second mode is coupled with the first mode, the frequency response around the resonance frequency does not match with the single-degree-of-freedom second-order-system response and results in errors in the sample's frequency characteristics. This requirement must be considered when designing springs for nanomechanical testers.
Atomic force microscope (AFM) cantilevers are designed to have desired dynamic characteristics suitable for topography measurement, but are difficult to use for nanoindentation applications due to tilting characteristics of the tip during indentation.
Limitation of Conventional Technology with Respect to Indenter Tip Wiring
In some nanoindentation applications, a conductive tip is used which is wired for purposes of electrical measurement or discharging. When an indenter tip is wired, it can be used for in-situ electrical measurement during the nanoindentation to find the correlation between the mechanical and electrical data (see Reference 16). In addition, a wired conductive tip is used for in-situ electron microscopy nanoindentation (see Reference 4) to discharge the electrons and remove an attraction caused by the accumulation of electrons. Electrically isolating the conductive tip from the other electrode is difficult for a MEMS device because of its small size and electrical layout limitations. The indenter tip of one known MEMS nanoindenter (see Reference 5) is connected to one of the sensing capacitor plates which may cause electrical drift and an increase in noise. Complete isolation of the tip is desirable to prevent unwanted effects caused by electrons in electron microscopy measurement.
Limitations of Conventional Technology with Respect to Transducer Packaging
It is desirable for a MEMS nanomechanical tester to be packaged to protect the tester from contamination and electrically shield the transducer. Since a MEMS transducer has many small features which can malfunction as a result of contamination, protection from contamination is important to prolong the transducer's life time. Conductive packaging materials can be used to electrically shield the transducer. Most MEMS-based nanomechanical testers are not commercialized, and thus there has been little need to package the transducers. One known nanomechanical tester, a MEMS nanoindenter, is partially covered, but has springs and a circular hole designed for tip mounting which are exposed. This exposed area can be contaminated and can also accumulate the electrons when used in electron microscopy applications.
Limitation of Conventional Technology with Respect to Crash Protection
Due to the small gap distances between the capacitor electrodes in a comb drive, the electrodes can easily contact one another through improper operation or mishandling, particularly when a comb drive is used for nanomechanical testing where the comb drive can experience unstable operation. Even minor damage to the electrodes can effectively render the nanomechanical testing device useless as any damage to the comb drive destroys the calibration of the testing device so that measurement data cannot be properly converted into a sample's mechanical property properly due to incorrect transducer constants. Such electrode contact should be prevented to protect the transducer and the controller electronics from permanent damage and it can be prevented by mechanically limiting the movable electrode to motion within a safe range. Such a safety feature is not known to be used by any known MEMS-based mechanical testers.
Limitation of Conventional Technology with Respect to Indenter Tip Mounting
Measured indentation data comprise a loading and an unloading curve which can be converted into sample's mechanical properties. For this conversion, it is advantageous to employ an indenter tip with defined geometry. However, mounting an indenter tip on a small device, such as a MEMS device, is difficult due to the small size of the MEMS device and the indenter tip. In addition to the small size, the fragility of the MEMS material also makes it difficult. Some conventional comb drives can apply a force to a sample (see References 17-19), but the measured reaction of the sample to the force cannot be converted into mechanical properties (e.g. elastic modulus and hardness) because the force measurement is not performed with an indenter tip having a defined geometry.
Mounting of an indenter tip is one of the main challenges to utilizing a MEMS device as a nanoindenter. One known MEMS nanoindenter includes a circular, deep hole on the transducer for tip mounting. However, the geometry of this hole is not well optimized to align and permanently attach an indenter tip onto the transducer. The tip-transducer contact area is just a 0.2 mm radius circular face, which might not be large enough for proper alignment of the tip